


Just  a Glimpse, Just for Another While

by navaan



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, First Meetings, POV Female Character, Regeneration, Time Travel, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-11 03:09:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12926055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Rose Tyler is looking for the Doctor. She doesn't find quite the one she's looking for - but she may be exactly the right one.





	Just  a Glimpse, Just for Another While

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).



They call it the dimension cannon – and no kidding. 

Rose is pulled, pushed, stretched. The walls of time and space glitch in and out and it feels as if she's shot right through it like it's from the barrel of a gun. She's the bullet stretched by the force of it and then she's just there again, stands on her own two feet as if she has just walked out of a doorway and nothing at all has happened. A couple of times, she has tried to explain exactly what it is that she sees and feels during the incredibly, intensely long drawn out seconds she spends as the little bullet between universes, but it's hard to explain. Parts of her understand it all and that scares her.

 _It's the wolf in me_ , she thinks. 

And she does understand, too, that it's the wolf, the Bad Wolf, who always guides her home. In all her many trips she only once ended up in the wrong universe and a right little mess it had been.

She knows it's the right universe now too. She can't explain why she knows or how.

But Rose Tyler has come a long way to accept that knowledge so easily. She's not just a girl who has no idea what's her lot in life. She's Rose Tyler – humanities defence against anything that is lurking out there in time and space, leader of Torchwood, Doctor's companion without a Doctor to save her. Her role at Torchwood has grown and changed and she's in charge now for a reason.

Where she comes from there is no Doctor to save her or anyone.

So they have to do it themselves. 

Rose takes a deep breath and makes sure she's alone. The alley is empty. But she can hear people nearby. It's the middle of the day and the weather is clear. She knows where she is. London. Close to her old haunts. 

Time to go hunting.

Through countless attempts she knows the Doctor will be close-by, but there's no guarantee that she'll find him. She has tried so often already and so far she hasn't so much as caught a glimpse of him.

She walks over to where she knows something must have happened. Aliens or something. Their readings on “events” are getting better and better. A crowd of people has gathered around a hole in the ground. People are murmuring, but Rose doesn't pay much attention. She's scanning the crowd.

No Doctor.

No brown coat.

No messy hair.

No black leather jacket either, she thinks with some regret. She'd take that Doctor, too, as long as she finally finds him. Although she knows it's silly, looking for the Doctor makes it seem like he's everywhere and nowhere, like he's a story that people know of, but only know from hearsay. 

_Don't be daft_ , she admonishes herself. _You know he exists. You just have to find him again and save the world. Cup of tea._

Her eyes glide across the crowd, focused but sad. He isn't here.

Briefly her eyes meet a blonde woman's. She's standing across the way, hand in the pockets of her long grey-beige jacket and... watches. Rose doesn't think much of it.

Some people sense there's something off about her and stare. It happens.

But the Doctor isn't here. No need to stay.

With a final sigh, Rose turns and walks away.

She's thinking of finding another quiet place and making her way back home.

“This was a waste of time, just like Mickey predicted”, she mumbles to herself and starts in another direction when she notices the alley from before is no longer as empty. Their leads on other places were stronger but she has chosen this one for the mission. Rose had that certain gut feeling – the one that tells her she's on the right track.

_Damn it._

She really hoped this time it would be the right place.

“Mickey predicts?” a voice says, as if it's forming the words carefully, like the woman who is speaking doesn't know how to talk to strangers or like the voice hasn't been used in a while. Like it's new.

Such a stupid thought.

“Not the mouse,” Rose says and grins, because she knows Mickey would hate the thought.

“Not the mouse,” the woman agrees, but sounds uncertain, and she's pulling bangs of her blond hair into her face and stares at it. “Does this look strange to you? Feels okay, but it gets into the eyes all the time.”

“Looks good,” Rose answers and she's growing a little impatient. The Doctor isn't here and she has places to be, new plans to make... She tries to smile anyway. Something about the woman who looks like she fell in and out of a wardrobe this morning – the trousers are just a little too short and it's cute, together with the colourful and old-fashioned braces. 

She's cute, too, and she looks at Rose with a bemused look before she wrinkles her nose and laughs. “This is brilliant. I thought I'd have to figure this out all by my bloody self.”

“Figure out?” She really has no time for this, but she can't look away, can't just leave. Her gut tells her to hear the rest of this nonsense conversation.

Is the woman confused and if she is then why is she? 

“Bah,” she says. “New teeth. I hate that. Always hate that.”

New teeth. It seems like just another nonsense thing to say. But then the woman moves her arms in a cute and very specific way Rose has seen before. But this isn't... It's simply not possible. But then what did she know? “Doctor?”

“Yes! Yes! That's it! Doctor! The Doctor and Rose. Good to see you Rose. Good old Rose.”

Rose _stares_ hard. 

“Shouldn't you be off with...” The woman – the Doctor waves her hand in front of herself as if she's trying to tell her something. It's a very Doctor thing to do. “...off... with... well, with me.. the half-me... Donna-me?”

“What?”

The Doctor shakes her head. “Ah, no, that's not right, is it? We're doing this in the wrong order.”

She frowns and it's a cute expression.

But Rose can't help it – the expression, the differences, the similarities, she's been there before. “Doctor?” And before she gets an answer she launches herself at the Doctor, this new Doctor with the extremely old confused eyes and the body of a young, nice looking woman.

Rose holds on and the Doctor pats her back. “There, there. All is well. I think. Never quite sure after the...” She wrinkles her nose again. “The...”

“Regeneration.”

“That, yes, that! But no... I had a run in with a Time Trap. Left me a bit... muddled. Hadn't even made a decision about liking the hair yet, when it happened.”

“I was looking for you!”

“Oh?” Momentarily the Doctor is confused, her mouth standing open in a round o. “Ah! Convenient! I could use some... company.”

“I can't...”

Soft lips press to hers and are gone again, before her mind really catches up with it. 

“Or maybe you can't.” The Doctor frowns. “Wrong order, yeah. Bad, that.”

“Timey-wimey,” Rose says decisively. “No order.” 

“Oh, yes! Right! We have a Tardis.” And the woman laughs delightedly. “Travel with me! I could use a familiar face around.”

And the Doctor takes her hand and pulls her along, saying: “I kissed you, didn't I? I don't usually do it. Must be the regeneration. Or the body. Or... I kiss now. Apparently I hugged before.”

Rose lets herself be pulled away, overwhelmed and delighted. She's still looking for her man in the brown coat with the sad brown eyes, but there's nothing to be said against sparkling old blue.

Her gut tells her, she's needed here first.

“You know how to kiss,” she agrees and chuckles, while the Doctor snaps her fingers to make the Tardis doors open and steps through before Rose.

Time to travel for a bit.

The Doctor and the Wolf, back together again.

Just for another while.


End file.
